Heaven Knows, Anything Goes
by vifetoile89
Summary: There are some things that "everybody" knows about Air Nomads. Aang's four grandchildren and their ways of rebelling.
1. Jinora

_But I'm always true to you darling, in my fashion. Yes, I'm always true to you, darling, in my way_. – Air Nomads are chaste.

Jinora fell in love a million times on paper before she ever met Kai. She knows that the old Airbenders did not swear marriage to one another, but the new Air Nation will be different, starting with her mother and father - further back, starting with Aang and Katara and their love story of a lifetime. Jinora will be loving, and faithful, and true, and happy, and chaste.

But not just yet.

But that is the future, and in the present Jinora is eighteen, tall and solitary. She is studying in the Fire Nation Capitol, as the guest of Fire Lady Izumi.

Jinora had first met Fire Lady Izumi when she was five, and the two always liked one another. It only took one meeting for them to recognize their kinship – the serious, quiet ones; the ones most aware of their responsibility to their nation. In short, they were the oldest sisters. In a thank-you note to Tenzin and Pema, Izumi had added that Jinora was welcome to the Fire Nation should she ever wish to live or study there. That offer was not made lightly. Jinora wrote to Izumi to thank her for the offer, and the two became pen-pals.

After her eighteenth birthday, Jinora flew to the Fire Nation to finally accept the invitation.

Her heart was light. She was sad to leave her life in Republic City – her family, and Korra and Asami, and, well, she missed Kai, but it was also nice to be apart from him. She had gotten a little sick of destiny, after all this time.

She passed a month in the Palace, Izumi's guest and the star of the court. Being the center of attention had never come easily to her, though. She was happy to move into ordinary dormitories at the University of Kindling. There, she delighted in academia, philosophy, and the like-minded intellectuals around her. She missed Kai, but that was what letters were for. And she hadn't been wrong about herself: she hadn't breathed so free in years. Being away from all that responsibility, all the scrutiny, the feeling that her future was already written and wasn't particularly wide… It took her some time to realize where her eyes lingered, and where her thoughts strayed, and what it was she had really wanted, why she truly resented Kai's companionship.

Jinora wanted to fall in love, she wanted love that came in more varieties than at-first-sight, all-my-life, never-thought-of-another.

Yes, those are the words that described Gran Gran's marriage to Avatar Aang, but on this point, Jinora resents destiny. By the four winds, love is meant to be a many splendor'd thing, isn't it? So who could blame her for seeking out more?

The first summer holiday found her wandering the countryside, telling herself that she's searching for enlightenment, covering her arrows like her grandfather before her.

There's more to education than books, though. Jinora fell in love. She fell in love with minds, she fell in love with bodies, she fell in love with souls.

While she looked forward to a lifetime of fidelity with Kai, she didn't want to spend the rest of her life wondering. She wanted to learn. To learn is to touch, to hear, to taste and to hold. Girls and boys, scholars and fighters, wise and foolish, all briefly, briefly, like moths to a flame, briefly but passionately.


	2. Ikki

_Animal crackers in my soup, monkeys and rabbits loop de loop, gosh oh gee but I have fun swallowing animals one by one_ – _Air Nomads never consume meat_

She loves animals. She adores them. Her rapport with the sky bison becomes her claim to fame. Jinora will be the spiritual leader of the Air Nation, and Meelo will be its powerhouse, but Ikki knows animals around the world like no one else. Furry or scaly or feathery, she loves them with all her heart.

When she _finally_ comes of age, and _fi-na-lly_ gets her arrows, she travels to Omashu to better understand the unique fauna that live in its treacherous mountain terrain: the wolfbats and the leopardgoats and, of course, the sacred badgermoles.

Her fellow Air Nation friends have friends in the city; with a few letters and contacts, she gets to share the rent and board with three students on Dumpling Street, a famous restaurant quarter.

Ikki likes her new roommates – Ginseng, Choi, and Pepper – at once. They admire her tattoos, and think she's a sophisticated city girl (which, well, she is). Then Ginseng – the one from the country – says, "You're a vegetarian? So you've, like, _never_ eaten meat?"

"I've never eaten a single animal product," Ikki says, holding her head up proudly. "Not even milk."

Horrors!

"Not even _eggs_."

"How?" demands Choi.

"Not… even… honey," Ikki adds, and now they gasp and they say that she's lying.

It's a good thing, to room with three apprentice cooks. Ikki picks up a lot of cookery with a speed and interest that would have astounded her mother, but she keeps her standards. She pinches her nose expressively and tells them she'll forgive them the odor of pork grease, as long as they make sure to keep it out of her food. Laughing, they agree, and call her Miss Priss, friendly-like.

"No, no," she tells them mock-sternly. "Miss Priss is my sister."

The roommates would hear a lot about "Miss Priss" in the days to come. Ikki had no end of stories about times when Jinora had irritated her, usually by being more perfect than a human should be. It seemed to Ikki that every time she called Republic City from the Omashu community center telephone, Tenzin had another story about how wonderful Jinora had been, and how Ikki should do her best to be like her.

Choi was the youngest son of four, so he sympathized. Pepper, an only daughter, assured Ikki it couldn't be that bad. Ginseng nodded, said that Jinora sounded like a real tool, and cooked up a bowl of Ikki's favorite ramen: mushroom and bean sprout, topped with lashings of chili oil.

She spent a happy eight months with them before an awful fever struck Omashu.

All four of the roommates were stricken, but Ikki took it worst. The rest of her life she would shudder to think what a close call she had had with death itself.

Her fever broke, finally, but she would linger, weak and pale, long past her friends' recovery. She had wasted away, and despite the most nourishing soups her friends cooked up, she did not gain her old weight or strength. She had no appetite.

One day, she had dragged herself out to the little courtyard to attempt airbending. She couldn't even finish the first form, and Pepper found her out there, crying with frustration, huddled on a bench. Pepper urged Ikki to come inside and have some soup – mushroom and bean sprout – and Ikki exploded.

"I'll throw up if I have to eat another damned vegetable," she said, "it's not doing any good – it all tastes like sand – give me meat if you have to, but I can't stand feeling this _weak_!"

Ikki clapped a hand over her mouth, remorseful at once.

That evening, as the roommates gathered around the radio, Pepper emerged from the kitchen with a hot bowl of chicken broth. She set it in front of Ikki without a word.

Ginseng stared at Pepper, and Choi said she must have made a mistake, but Ikki picked up the bowl. She held it, hands trembling, for a minute while she audibly prayed to thank the chicken for its life. Then, she drank.

Ikki swallowed, then shuddered, then burst into tears. She thanked Pepper, then set to work finishing the soup with a will, scowling with every sip. But she drank it all, and slept soundly.

The next day she felt a bit better, and Ginseng made her a bowl of beef broth. Ikki gathered strength slowly. Choi alone held out. He refused to cook anything with meat for Ikki, saying she would regret it when she got better. Ikki turned away from him.

She grew stronger, and her appetite increased. After a spell of indigestion, her body quickly got used to eating solid meat – first duck and chicken, then pork in its different forms, and finally beef. When she was strong enough to resume airbending, she realized that she felt even better than she had before the fever. She felt stronger from top to toe – she even shot up an inch in height.

After a time, she grew strong enough to feel shame.

She lived in a secret horror that somehow – _somehow_ – Jinora, or her parents, or someone, would find out she was eating meat. She only ate meat at home, with the blinds shut, lest someone _see_ her (even though Ginseng told her she was being silly). She visited the slaughterhouses and meat-packing district of Omashu; she forced herself to look into the eyes of cows that were about to be slaughtered.

Pepper said she was being morbid. Choi said he'd just _known_ she would regret this.

Ikki was strangely silent on the matter, though she was more than happy to gossip about anything else under the sun. She could visit her old friends again, and she could use airbending to draw all the noises of Omashu to her and wind them away from her.

But when she had recovered enough to take to the air – when she was strong enough to take to her glider – she leapt up and she flew. Being back in the air was utter bliss.

She'd never felt this airsick before. Was she out of practice? Or was it last night's heavy dinner? Or was it – maybe it was the stench of the air of Omashu, as the stockyards and the slaughterhouses and the butchers and the kitchens all did their work.

Ikki took a gale, and rose higher and higher out of the city, while her stomach pricked at her, unbearably painful, weighing her down and down.

After that day, Ikki never ate meat again.


	3. Meelo

_Luck, if you've ever been a lady to begin with, luck be a lady tonight_ – _Air Nomads keep no possessions, Air Nomads are temperate_

When he turns sixteen, Meelo receives his arrows – a little late, he thinks, but then, it's not like he ever really craved the responsibility of being a Master. When his skin heals up, he gaily waves good-bye to his baby brother and his parents and Republic City, the only home he's ever known, and flies North. He lands at the Northern Water Tribe.

It feels right, after all. He's descended from the Northern Water Tribe, on his great-great-grandmother's side. So in a way, it's like coming home.

It's also a nice throwback – he gets to return to being the one-in-a-million, the only Airbender in the entire North Pole. He flits to and fro, is admired wherever he goes, and he makes friends out of the soldiers.

But then… he gets bored again. Just like in Republic City, it strikes him here, too. It has always been Meelo's most dread enemy for as long as he can remember.

Boredom.

Boredom, along with its dread sisters, ennui, depression, melancholy, and very bleak philosophical musings. I mean, what's the point? He's the strongest Airbender in the world – and everybody knows it – he's from the bloodline of Avatar Aang and Katara the Mighty, he could whip up a storm and quell it again in fifteen minutes flat; but what's the point? There are no challenges anymore. Everywhere he goes, he gets bored, _bored_ , **_bored_** **.**

Meelo's always been terrible at hiding his feelings. Fortunately, his fellow soldiers take pity on his obvious funk. They welcome him on their voyages into town, to their favorite dive bar where they socialize, drink, and play dice.

Alcohol makes Meelo's heart skip, and he's fine with socializing, but that bores him, too. The gambling table, though—there's barriers up, there. When Meelo so much as glances their way, the sharp-looking dealer tells him he can't airbend on the table, not on his life.

He gives her a _look_ , says he wouldn't dream of bending pitiful little dice. To prove it, he calls his soldier friends over and lets them tie his hands behind his back. By this point they've gathered a crowd, and Meelo always did like putting on a show.

A beery old-timer who calls the gambling table his kingdom calls him out for a challenge. He swears at Meelo and insults his ancestry five ways; Meelo rolls his eyes and insults the old man's body odor seven ways. People laugh. The show's getting started.

"Place your bets," says the dealer. "Two dice, six-sided."

"Five," says the old-timer.

"Three," Meelo says. His heart skips a beat. It feels good. Three's his lucky number, after all.

The dealer rattles the dice in a cheap red cup, and spills them onto the tabletop.

Meelo catches his breath. Untouched by him, the dice spin and dance through empty air, over the table's felt cloth, rattling to their destiny, brief as a breath.

Anything could happen.

Three wins.

Around them, the air explodes with noise. His friends laugh and push copper coins his way. Meelo only has eyes for the dice.

" _Aiya_. Beginner's luck," the old-timer grumbles. "Whaddya say, kid? Best two out of three?"

Meelo looks up, his eyes bright, his grin wide. "How about three out of five?"


	4. Rohan

_The world has gone mad today and good is bad today and black is white today and day is night today – Airbenders love peace_

Air is the element of freedom.

How often has he heard that?

Does anyone really believe it anymore?

Rohan sits on the rooftops of Air Temple island, his hair loose and picking up in the wind, and he wonders. Next to him, the radio burrs the news to itself.

000

Rohan was a late bloomer; he didn't show any trace of airbending until he was five. Eleven years later, he shows no sign of developing the sheer power that his siblings possess. But he doesn't mind. He doesn't need to summon gale forces to feel like himself.

Rohan grows up in a different world than his siblings. By the time he's old enough to form his own idea of the world, Harmonic Convergence and the Unification War are all past. He's never known a time before there was a small but vibrant Air Nation around his family.

Maybe this is the source of this rift between himself and his siblings. In their minds, they have never let go of this idea that they are special, three utter miracles in the wide world.

Rohan knows he's loved, knows he's special. But he sees a different world than they do. He sees a world where all the legends have passed, where spirits living in Republic City are a fact. While his siblings wander the world, chasing challenges or enlightenment, he's still flying over their home city, listening to the radio late at night. Listening to what's wrong with the world.

Rohan loves Republic City, and he loves its people. He's happy to stay at Air Temple Island, the last fledgling of his family. But he thinks, there's got to be more that I can do.

He can't even name the instinct. He meets every single Air Nomad who comes through Republic City, but none of them connect with him. As the days go by, he wants, more and more, to hear wisdom that doesn't derive from the wellspring of Avatar Aang.

In the end…

In the beginning, Rohan approaches the prison outside of the city. He tells the guards he's on a mission from his father. They let him through – how could they even presume to doubt the son of Master Tenzin?

Step by step, deeper and deeper into the earth, until Rohan is face to face with the only forbidden Airbender in the world.

The prisoner slowly opens his eyes. "And what should Master Tenzin want with me?"

Rohan prepares his lie. But some prescient part of him knows, this is where his education begins. So, instead, he tells the truth.

"Zaheer," he says, "I want to learn from you."


End file.
